OROVILLE — As Supervisor Doug Teeter alluded to on Tuesday, those who have driven a large vehicle or trailer over Little Chico Creek on the bridge on Ord Ferry Road likely had a tedious experience.
During its meeting on Tuesday, the Butte County Board of Supervisors approved a $1,347,489 contract with Knight CM for consulting services related to a rebuild of the bridge.
“This is to handle all of the administrative and inspection duties to support staff,” said Butte County Public Works Director Joshua Pack. “As you can imagine, there is a myriad of inspections necessary to be done in order to ensure the bridge is held to the highest quality so this contract is to support those services over a two season construction job.”
The bridge, which is noted as narrow by the staff report, will be replaced with one that is 43 feet wide and 640 feet long. It crosses Little Chico Creek west of Dayton.
Last year, the county entered into a $15 million contract with Steelhead Constructors to build the bridge. Construction is slated for later this spring.
For the consulting contract, Pack said the vast majority is funded through grants.
“About 89% comes from a grant and the remaining 11% comes from a local match from our road fund so no general fund money is being expended,” Pack said.
For this contract, only one company entered a bid. During the discussion Supervisor and Chairman Tod Kimmelshue asked if that was normal to which Pack said his department would “love to see more.”
“We were fortunate to get a highly qualified and competent bid,” Pack said. “Work is really busy right now. It is a historic time of year, especially with the infrastructure bill — the bipartisan infrastructure bill — it is a white-hot market. In this particular field, we are seeing less bids for this sort of service.”
While construction hasn’t begun yet, early signs such as orange netting and county trucks could be found around the bridge on Tuesday afternoon.
Civil Engineer Raymond Cooper broke down what the project will look like once construction begins.
“We’re going to be maintaining traffic throughout the two season project and we’re going to build a detour on the north side and do traffic control this construction season,” Cooper said. “And then we’ll (demolish) the bridge and we’ll get all of the foundations and the substructure in this season, and we’re going to build half of what’s called the superstructure. Then we’ll move traffic onto the bridge, and next season we will construct the other half.”
Cooper said traffic control will consist of a temporary signal along with a detour route early in the project’s timeframe.
Other business
Aside from talking about the consulting contract, the board made the following actions:
• The board approved three new bonuses for the Behavioral Health Department, specifically for Emergency and Forensic Classifications. These consisted of a $10,000 hiring bonus, a $2,000 retainment bonus and a $1,000 referral bonus.
• Four Butte County properties had liens imposed on them with a fifth getting the option to negotiate fees.
• A brief update was provided on the Fire Victim Trust.
• Behavioral Health Director Scott Kennelly provided a quarterly update on his department.
